BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA: Carter Secures Four-Month Ceasefire

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joel Brand

SARAJEVO, Dec 20 1994 (IPS) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter flew out of the Bosnian capital Tuesday with agreements for a four- month ceasefire in the country and the stated belief that a negotiated end to the fighting could be reached before the new year.

In yet another attempt by the international community to negotiate a settlement to the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, the U.S. mediator signed separate agreements with each side. It is still not clear if any authority, other than his own, is backing the accords.

The four-month ceasefire is set to begin at noon on December 23. The same day the two parties are to begin discussions on a “total cessation of hostilities, “with the intent to conclude the agreement by January 1, 1995,” Carter told reporters in the Bosnian capital.

It is however unclear if Carter had secured full agreement on the most critical issue — the “Contact Group” peace plan. The plan was put forth in July by the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany as the culmination of three years of fruitless diplomacy in the region.

The Bosnian government has accepted the initiative, but separatist Serbs have rejected it four times.

Displaying perhaps some lack of understanding about the complexities of the territorial dispute, Carter called the Serb refusal to sign the “contact group” peace plan and the Bosnian government insistence that they do before further negotiations, a difference of “semantics”.

“Both sides have agreed to the Contact Group’s proposal as a basis for negotiation of a permanent agreement, but there is a difference in the exact wording,” Carter told reporters. “I cannot detect any significant difference in the language, but that was a difference in semantics I have not been able to overcome.”

When asked by reporters if Carter had a firm grasp of the complexities of the war, Bosnian Vice-President Ejup Ganic said: “To be frank with you, I don’t think so.”

Ganic said that the 70-year-old envoy may have fallen into a trap in accepting the Serb offer to come to Bosnia for negotiations. Already, the U.N. is working on a peace plan and the five-nation “contact group” proposal remains on the table, he stressed.

“The primary intention of (Bosnian leader) Radovan Karadzic in inviting president Carter is to destroy the plan of the ‘contact group’,” Ganic said.